Here at Byzantium, he received his first communication from the Thracian prince Seuthes; who sent Medosadês to offer him a reward if he would bring the army across. Xenophon replied that the army would cross; that no reward from Seuthes was needful to bring about that movement; but that he himself was about to depart, leaving the command in other hands. In point of fact, the whole army crossed with little delay, landed in Europe, and found themselves within the walls of Byzantium.[254] Xenophon, who had come along with them, paid a visit shortly afterwards to his friend the harmost Kleander, and took leave of him as about to depart immediately. But Kleander told him that he must not think of departing until the army was out of the city, and that he would be held responsible if they stayed. In truth Kleander was very uneasy so long as the soldiers were within the walls, and was well aware that it might be no easy matter to induce them to go away. For Anaxibius had practised a gross fraud in promising them pay, which he had neither the ability nor the inclination to provide. Without handing to them either pay or even means of purchasing supplies, he issued orders that they must go forth with arms and baggage, and muster outside of the gates, there to be numbered for an immediate march; any one who stayed behind being held as punishable. This proclamation was alike unexpected and offensive to the soldiers, who felt that they had been deluded, and were very backward in obeying. Hence Kleander, while urgent with Xenophon to defer his departure until he had conducted the army outside of the walls, added—“Go forth as if you were about to march along with them; when you are once outside, you may depart as soon as you please.”[255] Xenophon replied that this matter must be settled with Anaxibius, to whom accordingly both of them went, and who repeated the same directions, in a manner yet more peremptory. Though it was plain to Xenophon that he was here making himself a sort of instrument to the fraud which Anaxibius had practised upon the army, yet he had no choice but to obey. Accordingly, he as well as the other generals put themselves at the head of the troops, who followed, however reluctantly, and arrived most of them outside of the gates. Eteonikus (a Lacedæmonian officer of consideration, noticed more than once in my last preceding volume) commanding at the gate, stood close to it in person; in order that when all the Cyreians had gone forth, he might immediately shut it and fasten it with the bar.[256]

Anaxibius knew well what he was doing. He fully anticipated that the communication of the final orders would occasion an outbreak among the Cyreians, and was anxious to defer it until they were outside. But when there remained only the rearmost companies still in the inside and on their march, all the rest having got out—he thought the danger was over, and summoned to him the generals and captains, all of whom were probably near the gates superintending the march through. It seems that Xenophon, having given notice that he intended to depart, did not answer to this summons as one of the generals, but remained outside among the soldiers. “Take what supplies you want (said Anaxibius) from the neighboring Thracian villages, which are well furnished with wheat, barley, and other necessaries. After thus providing yourselves, march forward to the Chersonesus, and there Kyniskus will give you pay.”[257]

This was the first distinct intimation given by Anaxibius that he did not intend to perform his promise of finding pay for the soldiers. Who Kyniskus was, we do not know, nor was he probably known to the Cyreians; but the march here enjoined was at least one hundred and fifty English miles, and might be much longer. The route was not indicated, and the generals had to inquire from Anaxibius whether they were to go by what was called the Holy Mountain (that is, by the shorter line, skirting the northern coast of the Propontis), or by a more inland and circuitous road through Thrace;—also whether they were to regard the Thracian prince, Seuthes, as a friend or an enemy.[258]

Instead of the pay which had been formally promised to them by Anaxibius if they would cross over from Asia to Byzantium, the Cyreians thus found themselves sent away empty-handed, to a long march,—through another barbarous country, with chance supplies to be ravished only by their own efforts,—and at the end of it a lot unknown and uncertain; while, had they remained in Asia, they would have had at any rate the rich satrapy of Pharnabazus within their reach. To perfidy of dealing was now added a brutal ejectment from Byzantium, without even the commonest manifestations of hospitality; contrasting pointedly with the treatment which the army had recently experienced at Trapezus, Sinôpê, and Herakleia; where they had been welcomed not only by compliments on their past achievements, but also by an ample present of flour, meat, and wine. Such behavior could not fail to provoke the most violent indignation in the bosoms of the soldiery; and Anaxibius had therefore delayed giving the order until the last soldiers were marching out, thinking that the army would hear nothing of it until the generals came out of the gates to inform them; so that the gates would be closed, and the walls manned to resist any assault from without. But his calculations were not realized. Either one of the soldiers passing by heard him give the order, or one of the captains forming his audience stole away from the rest, and hastened forward to acquaint his comrades on the outside. The bulk of the army, already irritated by the inhospitable way in which they had been thrust out, needed nothing farther to inflame them into spontaneous mutiny and aggression. While the generals within (who either took the communication more patiently, or at least, looking farther forward, felt that any attempt to resent or resist the ill usage of the Spartan admiral would only make their position worse) were discussing with Anaxibius the details of the march just enjoined, the soldiers without, bursting into spontaneous movement, with a simultaneous and fiery impulse, made a rush back to get possession of the gate. But Eteonikus, seeing their movement, closed it without a moment’s delay, and fastened the bar. The soldiers on reaching the gate and finding it barred, clamored loudly to get it opened, threatened to break it down, and even began to knock violently against it. Some ran down to the sea-coast, and made their way into the city round the line of stones at the base of the city wall, which protected it against the sea; while the rearmost soldiers who had not yet marched out, seeing what was passing, and fearful of being cut off from their comrades, assaulted the gate from the inside, severed the fastenings with axes, and threw it wide open to the army.[259] All the soldiers then rushed up, and were soon again in Byzantium.

Nothing could exceed the terror of the Lacedæmonians as well as of the native Byzantines, when they saw the excited Cyreians again within the walls. The town seemed already taken and on the point of being plundered. Neither Anaxibius nor Eteonikus took the smallest means of resistance, nor stayed to brave the approach of the soldiers, whose wrath they were fully conscious of having deserved. Both fled to the citadel—the former first running to the sea-shore, and jumping into a fishing-boat to go thither by sea. He even thought the citadel not tenable with its existing garrison, and sent over to Chalkêdon for a reinforcement. Still more terrified were the citizens of the town. Every man in the market-place instantly fled; some to their houses, others to the merchant vessels in the harbor, others to the triremes or ships of war, which they hauled down to the water, and thus put to sea.[260]

To the deception and harshness of the Spartan admiral, there was thus added a want of precaution in the manner of execution, which threatened to prove the utter ruin of Byzantium. For it was but too probable that the Cyreian soldiers, under the keen sense of recent injury, would satiate their revenge, and reimburse themselves for the want of hospitality towards them, without distinguishing the Lacedæmonian garrison from the Byzantine citizens; and that too from mere impulse, not merely without orders, but in spite of prohibitions, from their generals. Such was the aspect of the case, when they became again assembled in a mass within the gates; and such would probably have been the reality, had Xenophon executed his design of retiring earlier, so as to leave the other generals acting without him. Being on the outside along with the soldiers, Xenophon felt at once, as soon as he saw the gates forced open and the army again within the town, the terrific emergency which was impending; first, the sack of Byzantium,—next, horror and antipathy, throughout all Greece, towards the Cyreian officers and soldiers indiscriminately,—lastly, unsparing retribution inflicted upon all by the power of Sparta. Overwhelmed with these anxieties, he rushed into the town along with the multitude, using every effort to pacify them and bring them into order. They on their parts, delighted to see him along with them, and conscious of their own force, were eager to excite him to the same pitch as themselves, and to prevail on him to second and methodize their present triumph. “Now is your time, Xenophon, (they exclaimed), to make yourself a man. You have here a city,—you have triremes,—you have money,—you have plenty of soldiers. Now then, if you choose, you can enrich us; and we in return can make you powerful.”—“You speak well (replied he); I shall do as you propose; but if you want to accomplish anything, you must fall into military array forthwith.” He knew that this was the first condition of returning to anything like tranquillity; and by great good fortune, the space called the Thrakion, immediately adjoining the gate inside, was level, open, and clear of houses; presenting an excellent place of arms or locality for a review. The whole army,—partly from their long military practice,—partly under the impression that Xenophon was really about to second their wishes and direct some aggressive operation,—threw themselves almost of their own accord into regular array on the Thrakion; the hoplites eight deep, the peltasts on each flank. It was in this position that Xenophon addressed them as follows:—

“Soldiers! I am not surprised that you are incensed, and that you think yourselves scandalously cheated and ill-used. But if we give way to our wrath, if we punish these Lacedæmonians now before us for their treachery, and plunder this innocent city,—reflect what will be the consequence. We shall stand proclaimed forthwith as enemies to the Lacedæmonians and their allies; and what sort of a war that will be, those who have witnessed and who still recollect recent matters of history may easily fancy. We Athenians entered into the war against Sparta with a powerful army and fleet, an abundant revenue, and numerous tributary cities in Asia as well as Europe,—among them this very Byzantium in which we now stand. We have been vanquished in the way that all of you know. And what then will be the fate of us soldiers, when we shall have as united enemies, Sparta with all her old allies and Athens besides,—Tissaphernes and the barbaric forces on the coast,—and most of all, the Great King whom we marched up to dethrone and slay, if we were able? Is any man fool enough to think that we have a chance of making head against so many combined enemies? Let us not plunge madly into dishonor and ruin, nor incur the enmity of our own fathers and friends; who are in the cities which will take arms against us,—and will take arms justly, if we, who abstained from seizing any barbaric city, even when we were in force sufficient, shall nevertheless now plunder the first Grecian city into which we have been admitted. As far as I am concerned, may I be buried ten thousand fathoms deep in the earth, rather than see you do such things; and I exhort you, too, as Greeks, to obey the leaders of Greece. Endeavor, while thus obedient, to obtain your just rights; but if you should fail in this, rather submit to injustice than cut yourselves off from the Grecian world. Send to inform Anaxibius that we have entered the city, not with a view to commit any violence, but in the hope, if possible, of obtaining from him the advantages which he promised us. If we fail, we shall at least prove to him that we quit the city, not under his fraudulent manœuvres, but under our own sense of the duty of obedience.”[261]

This speech completely arrested the impetuous impulse of the army, brought them to a true sense of their situation, and induced them to adopt the proposition of Xenophon. They remained unmoved in their position on the Thrakion, while three of the captains were sent to communicate with Anaxibius. While they were thus waiting, a Theban named Kœratadas approached, who had once commanded in Byzantium under the Lacedæmonians, during the previous war. He had now become a sort of professional Condottiero or general, looking out for an army to command, wherever he could find one, and offering his services to any city which would engage him. He addressed the assembled Cyreians, and offered, if they would accept him for their general, to conduct them against the Delta of Thrace (the space included between the north-west corner of the Propontis and the south-west corner of the Euxine), which he asserted to be a rich territory presenting great opportunity to plunder; he farther promised to furnish them with ample subsistence during the march. Presently the envoys returned, bearing the reply of Anaxibius, who received the message favorably, promising that not only the army should have no cause to regret their obedience, but that he would both report their good conduct to the authorities at home, and do everything in his own power to promote their comfort.[262] He said nothing farther about taking them into pay; that delusion having now answered its purpose. The soldiers, on hearing his communication, adopted a resolution to accept Kœratadas as their future commander, and then marched out of the town. As soon as they were on the outside, Anaxibius, not content with closing the gates against them, made public proclamation that if any one of them were found in the town, he should be sold forthwith into slavery.

There are few cases throughout Grecian history in which an able discourse has been the means of averting so much evil, as was averted by this speech of Xenophon to the army in Byzantium. Nor did he ever, throughout the whole period of his command, render to them a more signal service. The miserable consequences, which would have ensued, had the army persisted in their aggressive impulse,—first, to the citizens of the town, ultimately to themselves, while Anaxibius, the only guilty person, had the means of escaping by sea, even under the worst circumstances,—are stated by Xenophon rather under than above the reality. At the same time no orator ever undertook a more difficult case, or achieved a fuller triumph over unpromising conditions. If we consider the feelings and position of the army at the instant of their breaking into the town, we shall be astonished that any commander could have arrested their movements. Though fresh from all the glory of their retreat, they had been first treacherously entrapped over from Asia, next roughly ejected, by Anaxibius; and although it may be said truly that the citizens of Byzantium had no concern either in the one or the other, yet little heed is commonly taken, in military operations, to the distinction between garrison and citizens in an assailed town. Having arms in their hands, with consciousness of force arising out of their exploits in Asia, the Cyreians were at the same time inflamed by the opportunity both of avenging a gross recent injury, and enriching themselves in the process of execution; to which we may add, the excitement of that rush whereby they had obtained the reëntry, and the farther fact, that without the gates they had nothing to expect except poor, hard, uninviting service in Thrace. With soldiers already possessed by an overpowering impulse of this nature, what chance was there that a retiring general, on the point of quitting the army, could so work upon their minds as to induce them to renounce the prey before them? Xenophon had nothing to invoke except distant considerations, partly of Hellenic reputation, chiefly of prudence; considerations indeed of unquestionable reality and prodigious magnitude, yet belonging all to a distant future, and therefore of little comparative force, except when set forth in magnified characters by the orator. How powerfully he worked upon the minds of his hearers, so as to draw forth these far-removed dangers from the cloud of present sentiment by which they were overlaid,—how skilfully he employed in illustration the example of his own native city,—will be seen by all who study his speech. Never did his Athenian accomplishments,—his talent for giving words to important thoughts,—his promptitude in seizing a present situation and managing the sentiments of an impetuous multitude,—appear to greater advantage than when he was thus suddenly called forth to meet a terrible emergency. His pre-established reputation and the habit of obeying his orders, were doubtless essential conditions of success. But none of his colleagues in command would have been able to accomplish the like memorable change on the minds of the soldiers, or to procure obedience for any simple authoritative restraint; nay, it is probable, that if Xenophon had not been at hand, the other generals would have followed the passionate movement, even though they had been reluctant,—from simple inability to repress it.[263] Again,—whatever might have been the accomplishments of Xenophon, it is certain that even he would not have been able to work upon the minds of these excited soldiers, had they not been Greeks and citizens as well as soldiers,—bred in Hellenic sympathies and accustomed to Hellenic order, with authority operating in part through voice and persuasion, and not through the Persian whip and instruments of torture. The memorable discourse on the Thrakion at Byzantium illustrates the working of that persuasive agency which formed one of the permanent forces and conspicuous charms of Hellenism. It teaches us that if the orator could sometimes accuse innocent defendants and pervert well-disposed assemblies,—a part of the case which historians of Greece often present as if it were the whole,—he could also, and that in the most trying emergencies, combat the strongest force of present passion, and bring into vivid presence the half-obscured lineaments of long-sighted reason and duty.

After conducting the army out of the city, Xenophon sent, through Kleander, a message to Anaxibius, requesting that he himself might be allowed to come in again singly, in order to take his departure by sea. His request was granted, though not without much difficulty; upon which he took leave of the army, under the strongest expressions of affection and gratitude on their part,[264] and went into Byzantium along with Kleander; while on the next day Kœratadas came to assume the command according to agreement, bringing with him a prophet, and beasts to be offered in sacrifice. There followed in his train twenty men carrying sacks of barley-meal, twenty more with jars of wine, three bearing olives, and one man with a bundle of garlic and onions. All these provisions being laid down, Kœratadas proceeded to offer sacrifice, as a preliminary to the distribution of them among the soldiers. On the first day, the sacrifices being unfavorable, no distribution took place; on the second day, Kœratadas was standing with the wreath on his head at the altar, and with the victims beside him, about to renew his sacrifice,—when Timasion and the other officers interfered, desired him to abstain, and dismissed him from the command. Perhaps the first unfavorable sacrifices may have partly impelled them to this proceeding. But the main reason was, the scanty store, inadequate even to one day’s subsistence for the army, brought by Kœratadas,—and the obvious insufficiency of his means.[265]

On the departure of Kœratadas, the army marched to take up its quarters in some Thracian villages not far from Byzantium, under its former officers; who however could not agree as to their future order of march. Kleanor and Phryniskus, who had received presents from Seuthes, urged the expediency of accepting the service of that Thracian prince; Neon insisted on going to the Chersonese under the Lacedæmonian officers in that peninsula (as Anaxibius had projected); in the idea that he, as a Lacedæmonian, would there obtain the command of the whole army; while Timasion, with the view of re-establishing himself in his native city of Dardanus, proposed returning to the Asiatic side of the strait.

Though this last plan met with decided favor among the army, it could not be executed without vessels. These Timasion had little or no means of procuring; so that considerable delay took place, during which the soldiers, receiving no pay, fell into much distress. Many of them were even compelled to sell their arms in order to get subsistence; while others got permission to settle in some of the neighboring towns, on condition of being disarmed. The whole army was thus gradually melting away, much to the satisfaction of Anaxibius, who was anxious to see the purposes of Pharnabazus accomplished. By degrees, it would probably have been dissolved altogether, had not a change of interest on the part of Anaxibius induced him to promote its reorganization. He sailed from Byzantium to the Asiatic coast, to acquaint Pharnabazus that the Cyreians could no longer cause uneasiness, and to require his own promised reward. It seems moreover that Xenophon himself departed from Byzantium by the same opportunity. When they reached Kyzikus, they met the Lacedæmonian Aristarchus; who was coming out as newly-appointed harmost of Byzantium, to supersede Kleander, and who acquainted Anaxibius that Polus was on the point of arriving to supersede him as admiral. Anxious to meet Pharnabazus and make sure of his bribe, Anaxibius impressed his parting injunction upon Aristarchus to sell for slaves all the Cyreians whom he might find at Byzantium on his arrival, and then pursued his voyage along the southern coast of the Propontis to Parium. But Pharnabazus, having already received intimation of the change of admirals, knew that the friendship of Anaxibius was no longer of any value, and took no farther heed of him; while he at the same time sent to Byzantium to make the like compact with Aristarchus against the Cyreian army.[266]

Anaxibius was stung to the quick at this combination of disappointment and insult on the part of the satrap. To avenge it, he resolved to employ those very soldiers whom he had first corrupted and fraudulently brought across to Europe, next cast out from Byzantium, and lastly, ordered to be sold into slavery, so far as any might yet be found in that town; bringing them back into Asia for the purpose of acting against Pharnabazus. Accordingly he addressed himself to Xenophon, and ordered him without a moment’s delay to rejoin the army, for the purpose of keeping it together, of recalling the soldiers who had departed, and transporting the whole body across into Asia. He provided him with an armed vessel of thirty oars to cross over from Parium to Perinthus, sending over a peremptory order to the Perinthians to furnish him with horses in order that he might reach the army with the greatest speed.[267] Perhaps it would not have been safe for Xenophon to disobey this order, under any circumstances. But the idea of acting with the army in Asia against Pharnabazus, under Lacedæmonian sanction, was probably very acceptable to him. He hastened across to the army, who welcomed his return with joy, and gladly embraced the proposal of crossing to Asia, which was a great improvement upon their forlorn and destitute condition. He accordingly conducted them to Perinthus, and encamped under the walls of the town; refusing, in his way through Selymbria, a second proposition from Seuthes to engage the services of the army.

While Xenophon was exerting himself to procure transports for the passage of the army at Perinthus, Aristarchus the new harmost arrived there with two triremes from Byzantium. It seems that not only Byzantium, but also both Perinthus and Selymbria, were comprised in his government as harmost. On first reaching Byzantium to supersede Kleander, he found there no less than four hundred of the Cyreians, chiefly sick and wounded; whom Kleander, in spite of the ill-will of Anaxibius, had not only refused to sell into slavery, but had billeted upon the citizens, and tended with solicitude; so much did his good feeling towards Xenophon and towards the army now come into play. We read with indignation that Aristarchus, immediately on reaching Byzantium to supersede him, was not even contented with sending these four hundred men out of the town; but seized them,—Greeks, citizens, and soldiers as they were,—and sold them all into slavery.[268] Apprised of the movements of Xenophon with the army, he now came to Perinthus to prevent their transit into Asia; laying an embargo on the transports in the harbor, and presenting himself personally before the assembled army to prohibit the soldiers from crossing. When Xenophon informed him that Anaxibius had given them orders to cross, and had sent him expressly to conduct them,—Aristarchus replied, “Anaxibius is no longer in functions as admiral, and I am harmost in this town. If I catch any of you at sea, I will sink you.” On the next day, he sent to invite the generals and the captains (lochages) to a conference within the walls. They were just about to enter the gates, when Xenophon, who was among them, received a private warning, that if he went in, Aristarchus would seize him, and either put him to death or send him prisoner to Pharnabazus. Accordingly Xenophon sent forward the others, and remained himself with the army, alleging the obligation of sacrificing. The behavior of Aristarchus,—who, when he saw the others without Xenophon, sent them away, and desired that they would all come again in the afternoon,—confirmed the justice of his suspicions, as to the imminent danger from which he had been preserved by this accidental warning.[269] It need hardly be added that Xenophon disregarded the second invitation no less than the first; moreover a third invitation, which Aristarchus afterwards sent, was disregarded by all.

We have here a Lacedæmonian harmost, not scrupling to lay a snare of treachery as flagrant as that which Tissaphernes had practised on the banks of the Zab to entrap Klearchus and his colleagues,—and that too against a Greek, and an officer of the highest station and merit, who had just saved Byzantium from pillage, and was now actually in execution of orders received from the Lacedæmonian admiral Anaxibius. Had the accidental warning been withheld, Xenophon would assuredly have fallen into this snare, nor could we reasonably have charged him with imprudence,—so fully was he entitled to count upon straightforward conduct under the circumstances. But the same cannot be said of Klearchus, who undoubtedly manifested lamentable credulity, nefarious as was the fraud to which he fell a victim.

At the second interview with the other officers, Aristarchus, while he forbade the army to cross the water, directed them to force their way by land through the Thracians who occupied the Holy mountain, and thus to arrive at the Chersonese; where (he said) they should receive pay. Neon the Lacedæmonian, with about eight hundred hoplites who adhered to his separate command, advocated this plan as the best. To be set against it, however, there was the proposition of Seuthes to take the army into pay; which Xenophon was inclined to prefer, uneasy at the thoughts of being cooped up in the narrow peninsula of the Chersonese, under the absolute command of the Lacedæmonian harmost, with great uncertainty both as to pay and as to provisions.[270] Moreover it was imperiously necessary for these disappointed troops to make some immediate movement; for they had been brought to the gates of Perinthus in hopes of passing immediately on shipboard; it was mid-winter,—they were encamped in the open field, under the severe cold of Thrace,—they had neither assured supplies, nor even money to purchase, if a market had been near.[271] Xenophon, who had brought them to the neighborhood of Perinthus, was now again responsible for extricating them from this untenable situation, and began to offer sacrifices, according to his wont, to ascertain whether the gods would encourage him to recommend a covenant with Seuthes. The sacrifices were so favorable, that he himself, together with a confidential officer from each of the generals, went by night and paid a visit to Seuthes, for the purpose of understanding distinctly his offers and purposes.

Mæsadês, the father of Seuthes, had been apparently a dependent prince under the great monarchy of the Odrysian Thracians; so formidable in the early years of the Peloponnesian war. But intestine commotions had robbed him of his principality over three Thracian tribes; which it was now the ambition of Seuthes to recover, by the aid of the Cyreian army. He offered to each soldier one stater of Kyzikus (about twenty Attic drachmæ, or nearly the same as that which they originally received from Cyrus) as pay per month; twice as much to each lochage or captain,—four times as much to each of the generals. In case they should incur the enmity of the Lacedæmonians by joining him, he guaranteed to them all the right of settlement and fraternal protection in his territory. To each of the generals, over and above pay, he engaged to assign a fort on the sea-coast, with a lot of land around it, and oxen for cultivation. And to Xenophon in particular, he offered the possession of Bisanthê, his best point on the coast. “I will also (he added, addressing Xenophon) give you my daughter in marriage; and if you have any daughter, I will buy her from you in marriage according to the custom of Thrace.”[272] Seuthes farther engaged never on any occasion to lead them more than seven days’ journey from the sea, at farthest.

These offers were as liberal as the army could possibly expect; and Xenophon himself, mistrusting the Lacedæmonians, as well as mistrusted by them, seems to have looked forward to the acquisition of a Thracian coast-fortress and territory (such as Miltiades, Alkibiades, and other Athenian leaders had obtained before him) as a valuable refuge in case of need.[273] But even if the promise had been less favorable, the Cyreians had no alternative; for they had not even present supplies,—still less any means of subsistence throughout the winter; while departure by sea was rendered impossible by the Lacedæmonians. On the next day, Seuthes was introduced by Xenophon and the other generals to the army, who accepted his offers and concluded the bargain.

They remained for two months in his service, engaged in warfare against various Thracian tribes, whom they enabled him to conquer and despoil; so that at the end of that period, he was in possession of an extensive dominion, a large native force, and a considerable tribute. Though the sufferings of the army from cold were extreme, during these two months of full winter and amidst the snowy mountains of Thrace, they were nevertheless enabled by their expeditions along with Seuthes to procure plentiful subsistence; which they could hardly have done in any other manner. But the pay which he had offered was never liquidated; at least, in requital of their two months of service, they received pay only for twenty days and a little more. And Xenophon himself, far from obtaining fulfilment of those splendid promises which Seuthes had made to him personally, seems not even to have received his pay as one of the generals. For him, the result was singularly unhappy; since he forfeited the good-will of Seuthes by importunate demand and complaint for the purpose of obtaining the pay due to the soldiers; while they on their side, imputing to his connivance the non-fulfilment of the promise, became thus in part alienated from him. Much of this mischief was brought about by the treacherous intrigues and calumny of a corrupt Greek from Maroneia, named Herakleides; who acted as minister and treasurer to Seuthes.

Want of space compels me to omit the narrative given by Xenophon, both of the relations of the army with Seuthes, and of the warfare carried on against the hostile Thracian tribes,—interesting as it is from the juxtaposition of Greek and Thracian manners. It seems to have been composed by Xenophon under feelings of acute personal disappointment, and probably in refutation of calumnies against himself as if he had wronged the army. Hence we may trace in it a tone of exaggerated querulousness, and complaint that the soldiers were ungrateful to him. It is true that a portion of the army, under the belief that he had been richly rewarded by Seuthes while they had not obtained their stipulated pay, expressed virulent sentiments and falsehoods against him.[274] Until such suspicions were refuted, it is no wonder that the army were alienated; but they were perfectly willing to hear both sides,—and Xenophon triumphantly disproved the accusation. That in the end, their feelings towards him were those of esteem and favor, stands confessed in his own words,[275] proving that the ingratitude of which he complains was the feeling of some indeed, but not of all.

It is hard to say, however, what would have been the fate of this gallant army, when Seuthes, having obtained from their arms in two months all that he desired, had become only anxious to send them off without pay,—had they not been extricated by a change of interest and policy on the part of all-powerful Sparta. The Lacedæmonians had just declared war against Tissaphernes and Pharnabazus,—sending Thimbron into Asia to commence military operations. They then became extremely anxious to transport the Cyreians across to Asia, which their harmost, Aristarchus had hitherto prohibited,—and to take them into permanent pay; for which purpose two Lacedæmonians, Charmînus and Polynîkus were commissioned by Thimbron to offer to the army the same pay as had been promised, though not paid, by Seuthes; and as had been originally paid by Cyrus. Seuthes and Herakleides, eager to hasten the departure of the soldiers, endeavored to take credit with the Lacedæmonians for assisting their views.[276] Joyfully did the army accept this offer, though complaining loudly of the fraud practised upon them by Seuthes; which Charmînus, at the instance of Xenophon, vainly pressed the Thracian prince to redress.[277] He even sent Xenophon to demand the arrear of pay in the name of the Lacedæmonians, which afforded to the Athenian an opportunity of administering a severe lecture to Seuthes.[278] But the latter was found less accessible to the workings of eloquence than the Cyreian assembled soldiers; nor did Xenophon obtain anything beyond a miserable dividend upon the sum due;—together with civil expressions towards himself personally,—an invitation to remain in his service with one thousand hoplites instead of going to Asia with the army,—and renewed promises, not likely now to find much credit, of a fort and grant of lands.

When the army, now reduced by losses and dispersions to six thousand men,[279] was prepared to cross into Asia, Xenophon was desirous of going back to Athens, but was persuaded to remain with them until the junction with Thimbron. He was at this time so poor, having scarcely enough to pay for his journey home, that he was obliged to sell his horse at Lampsakus, the Asiatic town where the army landed. Here he found Eukleides, a Phliasian prophet with whom he had been wont to hold intercourse and offer sacrifice at Athens. This man, having asked Xenophon how much he had acquired in the expedition, could not believe him when he affirmed his poverty. But when they proceeded to offer sacrifice together, from some animals sent by the Lampsakenes as a present to Xenophon, Eukleides had no sooner inspected the entrails of the victims, than he told Xenophon that he fully credited the statement. “I see (he said) that even if money shall be ever on its way to come to you, you yourself will be a hindrance to it, even if there be no other (here Xenophon acquiesced); Zeus Meilichios (the Gracious)[280] is the real bar. Have you ever sacrificed to him, with entire burnt-offerings, as we used to do together at Athens?” “Never (replied Xenophon), throughout the whole march.” “Do so now, then (said Eukleides), and it will be for your advantage.” The next day, on reaching Ophrynium, Xenophon obeyed the injunction; sacrificing little pigs entire to Zeus Meilichios, as was the custom at Athens during the public festival called Diasia. And on the very same day he felt the beneficial effects of the proceeding; for Biton and another envoy came from the Lacedæmonians with an advance of pay to the army, and with dispositions so favorable to himself, that they bought back for him his horse, which he had just sold at Lampsakus for fifty darics. This was equivalent to giving him more than one year’s pay in hand (the pay which he would have received as general being four darics per month, or four times that of the soldier), at a time when he was known to be on the point of departure, and therefore would not stay to earn it. The short-comings of Seuthes were now made up with immense interest, so that Xenophon became better off than any man in the army; though he himself slurs over the magnitude of the present, by representing it as a delicate compliment to restore to him a favorite horse.

Thus gratefully and instantaneously did Zeus the Gracious respond to the sacrifice which Xenophon, after a long omission, had been admonished by Eukleides to offer. And doubtless Xenophon was more than ever confirmed in the belief, which manifests itself throughout all his writings, that sacrifice not only indicates, by the interior aspect of the immolated victims, the tenor of coming events,—but also, according as it is rendered to the right god and at the right season, determines his will, and therefore the course of events, for dispensations favorable or unfavorable.

But the favors of Zeus the Gracious, though begun, were not yet ended. Xenophon conducted the army through the Troad, and across mount Ida, to Antandrus; from thence along the coast to Lydia, through the plain of Thêbê and the town of Adramyttium, leaving Atarneus on the right hand, to Pergamus in Mysia, a hill-town overhanging the river and plain of Käikus. This district was occupied by the descendants of the Eretrian Gongylus, who, having been banished for embracing the cause of the Persians when Xerxes invaded Greece, had been rewarded (like the Spartan king Demaratus) with this sort of principality under the Persian empire. His descendant, another Gongylus, now occupied Pergamus, with his wife Hellas and his sons Gorgion and Gongylus. Xenophon was here received with great hospitality. Hellas acquainted him that a powerful Persian, named Asidates, was now dwelling, with his wife, family, and property, in a tower not far off, on the plain; and that a sudden night-march, with three hundred men, would suffice for the capture of this valuable booty, to which her own cousin should guide him. Accordingly, having sacrificed and ascertained that the victims were favorable, Xenophon communicated his plan after the evening meal to those captains who had been most attached to him throughout the expedition, wishing to make them partners in the profit. As soon as it became known, many volunteers, to the number of six hundred, pressed to be allowed to join. But the captains repelled them, declining to take more than three hundred, in order that the booty might afford an ampler dividend to each partner.

Beginning their march in the evening, Xenophon and his detachment of three hundred reached about midnight the tower of Asidates; it was large, lofty, thickly built, and contained a considerable garrison. It served for protection to his cattle and cultivating slaves around, like a baronial castle in the middle ages; but the assailants neglected this outlying plunder, in order to be more sure of taking the castle itself. Its walls however were found much stronger than was expected; and although a breach was made by force about daybreak, yet so vigorous was the defence of the garrison, that no entrance could be effected. Signals and shouts of every kind were made by Asidates to procure aid from the Persian forces in the neighborhood; numbers of whom soon began to arrive, so that Xenophon and his company were obliged to retreat. And their retreat was at last only accomplished, after severe suffering and wounds to nearly half of them, through the aid of Gongylus with his forces from Pergamus, and of Proklês (the descendant of Demaratus) from Halisarna, a little farther off seaward.[281]

Though his first enterprise thus miscarried, Xenophon soon laid plans for a second, employing the whole army; and succeeded in bringing Asidates prisoner to Pergamus, with his wife, children, horses, and all his personal property. Thus (says he, anxious above all things for the credit of sacrificial prophecy) the “previous sacrifices (those which had promised favorably before the first unsuccessful attempt) now came true.”[282] The persons of this family were doubtless redeemed by their Persian friends for a large ransom;[283] which, together with the booty brought in, made up a prodigious total to be divided.

In making the division, a general tribute of sympathy and admiration was paid to Xenophon, to which all the army,—generals, captains, and soldiers,—and the Lacedæmonians besides,—unanimously concurred. Like Agamemnon at Troy, he was allowed to select for himself the picked lots of horses, mules, oxen, and other items of booty; insomuch that he became possessor of a share valuable enough to enrich him at once, in addition to the fifty darics which he had before received. “Here then Xenophon (to use his own language[284]) had no reason to complain of the god” (Zeus Meilichios). We may add,—what he ought to have added, considering the accusations which he had before put forth,—that neither had he any reason to complain of the ingratitude of the army.

As soon as Thimbron arrived with his own forces, and the Cyreians became a part of his army, Xenophon took his leave of them. Having deposited in the temple at Ephesus that portion which had been confided to him as general, of the tithe set apart by the army at Kerasus for the Ephesian Artemis,[285] he seems to have executed his intention of returning to Athens.[286] He must have arrived there, after an absence of about two years and a half, within a few weeks, at farthest, after the death of his friend and preceptor Sokrates, whose trial and condemnation have been recorded in my last volume. That melancholy event certainly occurred during his absence from Athens;[287] but whether it had come to his knowledge before he reached the city, we do not know. How much grief and indignation it excited in his mind, we may see by his collection of memoranda respecting the life and conversations of Sokrates, known by the name of Memorabilia, and probably put together shortly after his arrival.

That he was again in Asia, three years afterwards, on military service under the Lacedæmonian king Agesilaus, is a fact attested by himself; but at what precise moment he quitted Athens for his second visit to Asia, we are left to conjecture. I incline to believe that he did not remain many months at home, but that he went out again in the next spring to rejoin the Cyreians in Asia,—became again their commander,—and served for two years under the Spartan general Derkyllidas before the arrival of Agesilaus. Such military service would doubtless be very much to his taste; while a residence at Athens, then subject and quiescent, would probably be distasteful to him; both from the habits of command which he had contracted during the previous two years, and from feelings arising out of the death of Sokrates. After a certain interval of repose, he would be disposed to enter again upon the war against his old enemy Tissaphernes; and his service went on when Agesilaus arrived to take the command.[288]

But during the two years after this latter event, Athens became a party to the war against Sparta, and entered into conjunction with the king of Persia as well as with the Thebans and others; while Xenophon, continuing his service as commander of the Cyreians, and accompanying Agesilaus from Asia back into Greece, became engaged against the Athenian troops and their Bœotian allies at the bloody battle of Korôneia. Under these circumstances, we cannot wonder that the Athenians passed sentence of banishment against him; not because he had originally taken part in aid of Cyrus against Artaxerxes,—nor because his political sentiments were unfriendly to democracy, as has been sometimes erroneously affirmed,—but because he was now openly in arms, and in conspicuous command, against his own country.[289] Having thus become an exile, Xenophon was allowed by the Lacedæmonians to settle at Skillus, one of the villages of Triphylia, near Olympia in Peloponnesus, which they had recently emancipated from the Eleians. At one of the ensuing Olympic festivals, Megabyzus, the superintendent of the temple of Artemis at Ephesus, came over as a spectator; bringing with him the money which Xenophon had dedicated therein to the Ephesian Artemis. This money Xenophon invested in the purchase of lands at Skillus, to be consecrated in permanence to the goddess; having previously consulted her by sacrifice to ascertain her approval of the site contemplated, which site was recommended to him by its resemblance in certain points to that of the Ephesian temple. Thus, there was near each of them a river called by the same name Selinus, having in it fish and a shelly bottom. Xenophon constructed a chapel, an altar, and a statue of the goddess made of cypress-wood: all exact copies, on a reduced scale, of the temple and golden statue at Ephesus. A column near them was inscribed with the following words,—“This spot is sacred to Artemis. Whoever possesses the property and gathers its fruits, must sacrifice to her the tithe every year, and keep the chapel in repair out of the remainder. Should any one omit this duty the goddess herself will take the omission in hand.”[290]

Immediately near the chapel was an orchard of every description of fruit-trees, while the estate around comprised an extensive range of meadow, woodland, and mountain,—with the still loftier mountain called Pholoê adjoining. There was thus abundant pasture for horses, oxen, sheep, etc., and excellent hunting-ground near for deer and other game; advantages not to be found near the Artemision at Ephesus. Residing hard by on his own property, allotted to him by the Lacedæmonians, Xenophon superintended this estate as steward for the goddess; looking perhaps to the sanctity of her name for protection from disturbance by the Eleians, who viewed with a jealous eye the Lacedæmonian[291] settlers at Skillus, and protested against the peace and convention promoted by Athens after the battle of Leuktra, because it recognized that place, along with the townships of Triphylia, as autonomous. Every year he made a splendid sacrifice, from the tithe of all the fruits of the property; to which solemnity not only all the Skilluntines, but also all the neighboring villages, were invited. Booths were erected for the visitors, to whom the goddess furnished (this is the language of Xenophon) an ample dinner of barley-meal, wheaten loaves, meat, game, and sweetmeats;[292] the game being provided by a general hunt, which the sons of Xenophon conducted, and in which all the neighbors took part if they chose. The produce of the estate, saving this tithe and subject to the obligation of keeping the holy building in repair, was enjoyed by Xenophon himself. He had a keen relish for both hunting and horsemanship, and was among the first authors, so far as we know, who ever made these pursuits, with the management of horses and dogs, the subject of rational study and description.

Such was the use to which Xenophon applied the tithe voted by the army at Kerasus to the Ephesian Artemis; the other tithe, voted at the same time to Apollo, he dedicated at Delphi in the treasure-chamber of the Athenians, inscribing upon the offering his own name and that of Proxenus. His residence being only at a distance of twenty stadia from the great temple of Olympia, he was enabled to enjoy society with every variety of Greeks,—and to obtain copious information about Grecian politics, chiefly from philo-Laconian informants, and with the Lacedæmonian point of view predominant in his own mind; while he had also leisure for the composition of his various works. The interesting description which he himself gives of his residence at Skillus, implies a state of things not present and continuing,[293] but past and gone; other testimonies too, though confused and contradictory, seem to show that the Lacedæmonian settlement at Skillus lasted no longer than the power of Lacedæmon was adequate to maintain it. During the misfortunes which befel that city after the battle of Leuktra (371 B.C.), Xenophon, with his family and his fellow-settlers, was expelled by the Eleians, and is then said to have found shelter at Corinth. But as Athens soon came to be not only at peace, but in intimate alliance, with Sparta,—the sentence of banishment against Xenophon was revoked; so that the latter part of his life was again passed in the enjoyment of his birthright as an Athenian citizen and Knight.[294] Two of his sons, Gryllus and Diodorus, fought among the Athenian horsemen at the cavalry combat which preceded the battle of Mantineia, where the former was slain, after manifesting distinguished bravery; while his grandson Xenophon became in the next generation the subject of a pleading before the Athenian Dikastery, composed by the orator Deinarchus.[295]

On bringing this accomplished and eminent leader to the close of that arduous retreat which he had conducted with so much honor, I have thought it necessary to anticipate a little on the future, in order to take a glance at his subsequent destiny. To his exile (in this point of view not less useful than that of Thucydides) we probably owe many of those compositions from which so much of our knowledge of Grecian affairs is derived. But to the contemporary world, the retreat, which Xenophon so successfully conducted, afforded a far more impressive lesson than any of his literary compositions. It taught in the most striking manner the impotence of the Persian land-force, manifested not less in the generals than in the soldiers. It proved that the Persian leaders were unfit for any systematic operations, even under the greatest possible advantages, against a small number of disciplined warriors resolutely bent on resistance; that they were too stupid and reckless even to obstruct the passage of rivers, or destroy roads, or cut off supplies. It more than confirmed the contemptuous language applied to them by Cyrus himself, before the battle of Kunaxa; when he proclaimed that he envied the Greeks their freedom, and that he was ashamed of the worthlessness of his own countrymen.[296] Against such perfect weakness and disorganization, nothing prevented the success of the Greeks along with Cyrus, except his own paroxysm of fraternal antipathy.[297] And we shall perceive hereafter the military and political leaders of Greece,—Agesilaus, Jason of Pheræ,[298] and others down to Philip and Alexander[299]—firmly persuaded that with a tolerably numerous and well-appointed Grecian force, combined with exemption from Grecian enemies, they could succeed in overthrowing or dismembering the Persian empire. This conviction, so important in the subsequent history of Greece, takes its date from the retreat of the Ten Thousand. We shall indeed find Persia exercising an important influence, for two generations to come,—and at the peace of Antalkidas an influence stronger than ever,—over the destinies of Greece. But this will be seen to arise from the treason of Sparta, the chief of the Hellenic world, who abandons the Asiatic Greeks, and even arms herself with the name and the force of Persia, for purposes of aggrandizement and dominion to herself. Persia is strong by being enabled to employ Hellenic strength against the Hellenic cause; by lending money or a fleet to one side of the Grecian intestine parties, and thus becoming artificially strengthened against both. But the Xenophontic Anabasis betrays her real weakness against any vigorous attack; while it at the same time exemplifies the discipline, the endurance, the power of self-action and adaptation, the susceptibility of influence from speech and discussion, the combination of the reflecting obedience of citizens with the mechanical regularity of soldiers,—which confer such immortal distinction on the Hellenic character. The importance of this expedition and retreat, as an illustration of the Hellenic qualities and excellence, will justify the large space which has been devoted to it in this History.